“Gates has also done nothing since zero was elected except be a useless idiot for the left”
I’m not defending Gates, but from Obama’s perspective, he is supposed to be the person in the Cabinet who knows most about national security/military matters. I just think it is illuminating that Obama rejected the advice of the military expert (not to mention the president of the country where this war is being fought) in favor of advice heavily weighted towards a political benefit-cost calculus.
Bush too pushed back against his military advisors in favor of the surge strategy in Iraq. Indeed, one can argue that Bush’s “stubborness” on this is what carried the day. But in so doing, he clearly was following the advice of other advisors who were arguing that the surge was the most effective MILITARY approach. He sure didn’t select the surge to increase his political popularity: indeed, he stuck to his guns even in the face of a public that seemed to have wearied of the war.
The contrast between GWB and Obama in terms of how they approached their respective decisions about how to conduct war in the ME couldn’t be sharper.
I understand your points, DrC, and you have made them quite eloquently. The differences between Bush 43 and zero are more than stark.
By and large, Bush (naively, IMO) ignored political pursuasion to select what he felt were the best candidates to perform a given function. He quickly learned during his first term that every effort he made to reach across the aisle to include the leftists would only conclude with another leftist stabbing him in the back (ref. Teddy Chappaquiddick’s remarks about Bush after the NCLB that Bush asked him to write was passed).
Zero, Gates and McC are all the result (and product) of political persuasion and influence. That Gates chose McC was a political choice, versus a choice of the BEST candidate available. Gates is proving himself to be one of the most destructive forces in the Pentagon since Simpson was Sec. of War. That zero kept him on from the Bush administration says mountains about Gates’ politics.
That’s what I am talking about.